forum Really struggling with world-building

Started April 09, 2020 by @ElianaRose15

tune

Okay so in one of my stories, it's 2011 (for no real reason other than I want it to be set in the past but in this decade) America and takes place in a private girls school. Here's the catch: the main character, Kylie, is a witch. There's an in-universe explanation as to why she doesn't know that. However, the story is about her being a witch. She finds out she's the chosen one and has to kill someone who is known as the destroyer, or they will kill her. Now here's my problem. At first, I wanted witches to like, try and hide their powers and the fact that they were witches. But, in more recent writings, I've decided that witches are well-known and understood, and generally accepted by society, and their history is taught in school. I even decided that for whatever reason, witches don't understand mental health because plot point. But I just…don't know how to go about this? I mean, I really want witches to be a common and accepted thing in the story because so many characters are secretly witches. I guess since some characters are bullies and others are religious (it makes sense for people to be scared to show their powers if they know they'll be bullied, right?) so that's why they only reveal their powers at the most convenient times. It's just so hard for me to put this in writing. Like, why does this character not showcase her powers all the time if being a witch doesn't bother her? I need help

it could be a fundamental consideration of witches of the powers they wield but barely understand - with great power comes great responsibility.
I believe a tenet of wicca is that what you cast out, you recieve back threefold, to encourage 'good magic', but it could be that this power comes at a great personal cost where they are targeted? Perhaps the use of magic has a undesired consequence like attracting potentially troublesome beasties, leaves the witch vulnerable or tips a cosmic balance somehow?

Perhaps it is because of general ignorance of witches powers after their leaders were decimated during history?
Think of it like if 1930s people could utilise modern computers without being able to make them or understand their processes, but can get results out of them (programs being 'spells' in this analogy

Perhaps the misunderstanding of mental health comes from the completely contradictory nature of their magic?
In this case, witches may not understand psychology because its fundamentals are at odds with the way magic works.

To make it more obvious, if its going to be an alternative history, the point of difference to our world could be that a debunked theory could be the accepted way of understanding - i.e. Freudian or Phrenology?

How far have you built the magic rationale?

@ElianaRose15 i found this on another thread, it might be interesting https://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/

I'm gonna write about everything I have so far like, worldbuilding wise

There is a witch world. However, it has to be accessed with a portal. In recent years, the witching world has fallen to tyranny and corruption and lots of magic is outlawed.

(I hope this doesn't sound like demonization of the LGBT community because that's not what I'm going for, it's just an analogy) I feel like witches are a lot like the LGBT community. They don't choose to be who they are, and in much more modern, recent years have become more widely understood by most people. Since a lot of religions are against witchcraft, it makes sense that places like the South still have a hatred and misunderstanding of witches because many people in the South are religious and close-minded.

For the most part (this is another thing I struggle with) witches don't really use verbal spells. It's all about silent verbal and hand magic. Potions, spell books, and other sorcery things are in there somewhere. I don't really know how to explain how someone would be able to cast non-verbal spells, and how others are obviously better and more efficient than others., but it definetly is something you learn through practice, reading spell-books, etc.

Now here's a big part I'm struggling with. There's somehow different forms of magic. By that I mean, different forms of spells a witch can naturally cast. For example, all witches can learn things like teleportation, time freezing, and combat spells. But if a witch is a Night Witch they are the only witch type that can cast spells specifically related to the darkness and dark magic.

Different witch types have different colored eyes when they cast spells. Normal Witches don't specialize in any elemental magic, and are just naturally better at learnt spells, and their eyes turn white-light blue when casting spells and the more experienced in a spell or whatever they are, then the brighter their eyes are. Night witches have either emerald green or purple eyes, and as previously stated, are good at dark arts. Healing Witches are good at things relating to fertility, healing, health, and nature, and their eyes turn hazel. Another type of witch (haven't discovered a name yet) specializes in water, light, and ice, and their eyes turn silver. The last type of witch specialize in something related specifically to combat, and their eyes turn red.

Another thing I want to keep in mind is there is still some prejudice toward the witches with purple, green, or red eyes, since the witch types they represent have potentially violent tendencies and abilities. Two characters in the book fit the prejudice, and are violent people. However, the other two with dark magic ability choose to do good in the world and not be evil.

Another thing about the religion and witches thing. One of the main characters, Nattie, is your typical Catholic Italian good-girl from Manhattan. She also happens to be a healing witch. The issue with that is…how do I explain that she is both religious, and a witch? One of the other girls, Yvonne, is Jewish and while she isn't a witch herself, she is friends with many witches and rather than be against them because of her religion, she is fascinated and always reads about their history and spells.

The reason I had the whole "witches suck at mental health" thing is because Kylie, main character, is sent to a mental hospital (more of a lunatic asylum) for witches as a child so she can forget about her powers and witch parents, and have a normal life after they are killed. I believe witches shouldn't understand mental health much because they think that a mental illness is actually a curse or hex, or think they can cure everything with a wand and magic spell.

The final thing is about the ending. In the end, the now adult Kylie creates a sorcery school for witches. It isn't required they attend sorcery school, but many do. That's the whole reason why being a witch needs to be a well-known, public thing. Because how else would there be a school for sorcery? What happens if a mortal (non-witch) tries to attend? How would people know about the school and be notified about it if they weren't public about them being witches? The Harry Potter books have their own explanation as to why Muggles can't see or interact with Hogwarts, but I don't really wanna use the same thing because that's just straight plagairism.

Witches vs Religion
Its not truly fair to say religion is opposed to witches by its nature, because contemporary practice isnt the synthesis of past best practice and morals, they just have their own themes and ideals.
Many cultures dismissed as 'pagan' had beliefs that were compatible with magical practice, and saw the practice as a useful service to provide the community.

There is a theory that the persecution of witches came from a gender power struggle with increased urbanisation and technology.
Men tended to dominate the 'hunting' aspect, which while it provided choice sources of food, it was also very dangerous and inefficent.
Gatherers in many cultures were the staple providers of the 'bread and butter', but also due to their intimate and specialised experience became the herbalists, healers and emotionally intelligent and empathic.
This role persisted with agrarian cultures, and women had an important part of social cohesion and determination of success of the community.
Then came the 'doctor' and early medical practice.
An stoic attempt to understand the mysteries of life by demanding that they control the healthcare of the community.
The primitive, dangerous and sometimes uncaring methods of leeching, surgery without anethestic or antibiotics could not compete with the local healer with centuries of proven practice - thus the Witch trials began…

Thats just an echo of a story told about history but it may have some relevance to the narrative you are developing.
Perhaps it could be an analogy about the reasons, or at least setting a similar theme.
Does the role that your witches provide compete with other organisations or roles?
Does the practice tend to attract people with different personality types or similar status?
Does it empower the empathic as opposed to the institutions that encourage the greedy, merciless and aggressive?

Next.. thoughts on the magic

eye colour, silent verbal and hand magic

It can be a trap to believe in your own mystery to ensure you demonstrate it on the page. This leaves you running the risk of losing the authenticity youre trying to establish for the arcane

Build some rationale for your magic for you, so you at least build consistent narrative clues in its described outcomes without having to reveal its 'science'.

Heres an attempt.
Magic comes from the channeling of powers of a plane/multiverse/energy that is barely understood but routinely accessed.
The transmission of this power is achieved through the use of mental powers but are understood as much as psychology in ancient greece.
They were on the starting track, but they had a long way to go.
The triggers for the spells are achieved by getting the mind into just a particular way that the neural networks can connect to the 'power' like a mobile phone to a network.
Maybe the eyes give away the type of connection, due to the remapping of brain. The non verbal cues are like yoga or meditation in a hurry - using tai chi hand movements and asmr like suggestion to lure the subconscious to participate in a negotiation with powers unimaginable. Getting the right motions ensures the right connection, so you get the right result.

Once you have the power ready, you need the focus. The eyes again could play a part because the funneling of certain types of power could leave a scar or residue, the more of a certain type of power used causes the eyes to take a certain colour.
This negates the morality of magic, as while some powers would suggest a less savoury practitioner (i.e. necromancy etc) its doesn't explain how they used it.
A 'good' witch utilising destructive spells to protect innocents should be judged by the consequences, not necessarily the source.

Its a trick in writing to take a simple concept, use it as a foundation of your worldbuilding, but describe it without any of its usual tropes.
Using the phone analogy, explain how it works to medieval peasant - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
This allows you to play with conflicts of understanding, of challenge of overcoming misinformation and ignorance that is the status quo

You can explain it all to yourself in the most absurd of fashion (its the mind manipulation to create a organic cybernetic mobile phone you can download apps (spells) which can be channelled externally) but explain it in thematically relevant way, building its own 'technical terms' that suggest the tropes of the arcane

As far as the understanding of magic, you can take cues from history again.
look at how any technology developed. Usually early on they can get outcomes that they don't understand, and as they understand more they create more questions.
The body of knowledge grows from simplistic general naive concepts to further specialisation and rabbit holes of development.
Some areas could come easier to us than others, some are suited to particular conditions (Genetics, personality, original eye colour)

Spellbooks and magic cues are just 'tricks' to get yourself into the 'mood'. Training, mediation, research could all guide you to a desired outcome, but due to it being in an early stages, they don't know what they don't know.
The powers could be used by advanced beings with just a thought, but that would take the evolution of the mind due to careful and consistent magical use. Maybe practitioners of the past have gotten the craft into disrepute because of disasters they caused while developing the 'science'

The different forms of spells could also be determined by need. While there are different 'areas' of the powers, there is also common needs.
Teleportation, time freezing or what ever spells you want to be common could be established by need or luck. Teleportation could have found early on by a practitioner that was so inclined (compatibility 'genetically?) and taught others because it was cool. You could even have spells that are seemingly pointless, but become super important later when conditions and understanding changes (a colour spell that seems pointless until you use it to camouflage the sheep so the dragon doesn't eat them - Loom 1990)

Specialisation in different areas means travelling down paths in the mind that may also include the scary stuff that lives within us.
Maybe getting into the mindset for terrible powers means confronting internal demons and memories?
Again I think the powers used, and the parts of the mind used to connect to the power could leave a mark on the eyes, as they are said to be windows to the soul.
You can explain it to youself in such a way, but in reality people don't necessarily understand the true reasons for things being the way they are, they just need a convenient explanation that suits their world view.

I hope i'm giving you some food for thought, I have a little more to add…

Another thing about the eye colour prejudice, you could look at an experiment 50 years ago about just that

Basically she taught the fundamental flaws of racism by using a metric other than skin colour.
She used some authentic sounding peudoscience to authenticate a theory she presented that suggested eye colour determined intelligence.
I think it was certain eye colours let in more UV and damaged the brain, therefore making certain people inferior to others purely because of genetic decisions they did not make.
Maybe in your world, the result of eye colour prejudice towards witches blurs into 'normal' life? Normal people are tarred by the same brush and 'muggles' with 'bad' eye colours are mistrusted

Ive covered religion a bit previously, but in regards to your statement about religious people being magical, I'd like to reiterate what i suggested before that even Christian have 'evolved' on the concept of magic. What are 'miracles' but religious sanction magic? Would magic that is useful to the support of a religion be also sanctioned?
Would they try to acquire the power of witches rather than just oppose it?

As far as your Jewish character, they have magic built into their tradition with the kabbalah and golems being the first to mind.

As far as Kylie being in a mental hospital, I could suggest another possibly relevant finding. Genius tends to correlate with insanity - you can't think of new solutions if you think the same as every one else!
Fundamentally, its an experiment that found that children (16) who tended to excel academically could have a greater tendency to develop bipolar disorders later on.
So to play along with the neural network remapping of the brain to gain powers, this could playout by making certain powers aligned with certain disorders, bad magic with psychopaths etc. At least it could make all your characters a bit mad, and therefore a bit more interesting.
Don't take 'madness' as a black or white situation, we can all sit in spectrums where being particularly individualistic or reserved, could be their symptoms
https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/genius-little-crazy/995625

Of course the practitioners paradigm would influence the way they understand the world around them. We tend to understand strange concepts by translating them into 'normal' as defined by our culture. When these practitioners are considering the brain when it comes to otherworldy powers, mental health may not be their primary goal.
Maybe thats how your protagonist becomes 'greater'? She does a journey into mental health reflection within the institute that sets her up with more mental strength to go on the journeys into her mind?
Master oneself before we can master the existential?

Maybe the whole school thing can be twisted slightly to avoid the comparisons and provide a sequels plot points.
Maybe to the world the school is presented as a 'rehab' centre for witches to the society in general?
An Asylum where they equip new witches in the new field of Witch mental self discovery, effectively providing them with a better defence from the risks of their vocation?

Anyway, I hope theres something in there, if you want to chew over any specifics just let me know

I'm battling the demons of self isolation and boredom.